Quote:
Originally Posted by saoir
I take your point but I don't agree. It was wholly predictable that those prices would drop as much or more than they have, and will continue to drop.
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Predictable? Maybe.
But not as fast as they did. And not as much as they did.
The only reason the hardware dropped as fast as it did was because Nook in June 2010 chose to price their ereaders at near (below?) cost and Amazon matched them. Until then, ereaders were priced like standalone products with healthy margins baked in. In fact, the recent trends have been for ereader prices to inch slightly higher.
Nook's strategy allowed them to sell $3B in ereaders and ebooks...at a cost of $4B. Hindsight says it was a bad move for them. Too big a drop, too fast.
(Amazon appears to have avoided those problems because their readers are supported by ads, which are bringing them close to $1B a year.)
So no, I don't think prices will continue to drop.
Not with ereader sales volumes declining due to hardware development stagnation and a good portion of ebook sales moving to phones and tablets.
Amazon's cheapest model is currently $10 higher than 2012, Nook $20+, and Kobo $30+. Features are nominally better but the entry level price is higher.